The meaning of the Portuguese word “saudade” is lost in English, but it represents an experience of loss that Greg Cooper has struggled with for more than a year and a half.
“There’s no real translation, but the closest would be ‘I miss you, but I miss you wholeheartedly,’ ” he said.
Cooper’s wife, Cláudia Figueiredo, self-deported to her native Brazil in January 2013, days before her visa was set to expire. The process of bringing Figueiredo back to the United States with a green card through her husband, a U.S. citizen, took longer than expected.
The couple’s separation resulted in a collection of over 550 photographs taken by Cooper, a photography instructor at the Brooks Institute in Ventura. The 46-year-old maintained a blog that featured portraits of himself and the couple’s dog Biskit to share “everyday moments” with Figueiredo, 44, while she was half a world away.
The last photograph was posted to the blog Aug. 5, the day Figueiredo stepped foot onto U.S. soil as a permanent resident.
“We don’t have to fight or work to get her back. That’s done,” Cooper said. “It was so time-consuming and emotionally draining.”
UNCERTAIN RETURN
Citizenship and Immigration Services approved Figueiredo’s application for residency at the end of January, but she did not receive notice of her visa interview at the U.S. consulate in Rio de Janeiro until the end of May.
By the time she had her appointment with the State Department in mid-July, Figueiredo had been living in her hometown of Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for 19 months.
“For me, it got a little easier just because I became more informed about the process as the process was happening,” Figueiredo said. “Last year was much harder. There was a lot of uncertainty. There was a lot of me not accepting the situation.”
Cooper joined his wife in Rio de Janeiro for her visa interview in mid-July.
They came prepared with two bags of paperwork, files about their case and photos and other evidence of their relationship. They asked their immigration lawyer how to conduct themselves during questioning.
“We didn’t know how the interview would go. We didn’t know how strict they were going to be, how mean they were going to be. We didn’t know if the questions mattered or our answers mattered,” he said. “It turned out to be the easiest of everything we’ve done. In five minutes, it was over.”
Now, Figueiredo said, the heavy stacks of documents will make “a fine doorstop” because the only evidence that mattered was a short memo from their lawyer saying she had fulfilled a residency requirement.
Figueiredo originally came to the U.S. in 1997 on a Fulbright scholarship to get her master’s degree, but the visa required her to return to her native country for two years after she completed the program.
Considering the time she spent in Brazil while receiving her doctoral degree along with her most current stay awaiting her green card, Figueiredo had spent more than two cumulative years in the country.
The couple still feared the time had to be consecutive, however. Even their lawyer was unsure thought the best idea might be postponing the interview until January 2015, marking two years since Figueiredo left Ventura County.
But Figueiredo said she needed to know whether she would continue to be separated from her family, which meant going through with the interview.
“I was making a very, very strong effort of not answering a question that hadn’t been asked yet,” she said. “I kept waiting until there was a question mark at the end of the sentence.”
“Have you fulfilled the two-year requirement?”
“I believe so,” said Figueiredo as she gave the interviewer the memo.
After a quick glance at the memo providing legal justification of her fulfillment of the residency requirement, the State Department representative approved her visa. Figueiredo was cleared to return to the United States.
“I had a fuzzy mental state after that point. ... I already don’t know what’s right and left,” she said.
The couple returned to their respective hometowns — Ojai and Belo Horizonte — after a weekend celebrating in Rio.
Less than three weeks later, Figueiredo was taking selfies in front of U.S. flags after going through customs at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
COMING HOME
Before it was clear Figueiredo would return to the U.S. early in August, Cooper was preparing for a group exhibit at the Brooks Institute Gallery 27 in Santa Barbara.
Cooper’s show, “Tenho saudades de voce,” which is Portuguese for “I miss you,” includes 15 photographs selected from the hundreds on the blog he produced for his wife.
“It was pretty emotional,” Cooper said. “Sitting down and talking about them (the photographs) really made me start to think about how I felt about this, and all of a sudden it started feeling like I’m exposing who I am, and I’ve never really done that before.”
“This is pretty special. It means a lot to me,” he added, wiping away tears.
By chance, Figueiredo returned to the United States two days before the exhibit’s opening reception, where the couple walked hand in hand gazing at the images that represented the many days — roughly half their marriage — they spent apart.
“It’s beautiful, thank you,” Figueiredo said with her arms around Cooper.
The couple took a moment for a hug and kiss in the gallery’s long hallway, full of photographs of Cooper and Biskit, mostly looking forlorn that the third member of their family was missing.
“This is for you. It’s your show. I’m really glad you’re here, Claudia,” Cooper said to his wife. “You’re here. Nothing else matters.”